The Professor and the Madman

The Oxford English Dictionary (the OED to those who keep it as a desk-side companion) has been the ‘last word on words’ for over a century. In 1857, the Philological Society of London decreed that existing English language dictionaries were, well, lacking. They set about on an ambitious endeavour, a complete re-examination of the language from Anglo Saxon times onward. It was a task that they continually underestimated. Over 20 years later, the Society embarked on a new partnership with Professor James Murray and Oxford University Press. The Professor and the Madman fictionalises the story of the OED’s eventual completion – some 414,825 words, twelve volumes and 50 years later.

Based on the novel The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman stars Mel Gibson as the aforementioned professor, and Sean Penn as the madman. Much like the OED, this adaptation has been a passion project of Gibson’s for over 20 years. To be honest, I was dubious about a Mel Gibson film and assumed, rather judgementally, that he would be playing the madman in a sort of art-imitates-life situation. To make matters worse: Murray is Scottish. But fear not! The accent is fine, probably still not completely accurate from reports I’ve read, but this is not a case of Braveheart 2.0, so you can breathe easy.

The problem of documenting the English language is that it was (and still is) evolving at a rate faster than it can be recorded. A comprehensive record of each word currently in use, including the history of its etymology and usage, required examples of the word in quotations. The team would effectively need to read every book in existence – an impossible task!

Murray, a brilliant philologist and autodidact with no academic background, is brought in to be the ‘extraordinary, the unconventional’ solution. He comes up with a plan to use volunteers: dubbed ‘English by democracy’. He calls upon the general public of English speakers, asking them to submit words from books they have read accompanied by the quote that contains the word. From his confinement in an asylum, William Chester Minor becomes the OED’s biggest contributor, submitting over 10,000 words.

Minor’s story is tragic and certainly one of its time, with the inaccurate ‘science’ of phrenology running rampant. Asylums during this period are often associated with tales of horror, rightly so considering ‘treatments’ for curing madness were largely experiments resembling torture. Minor is an American army surgeon haunted by his past actions in battle. Paranoid hallucinations eventually lead him to mistakenly murder George Merrett, a father of six. During periods of lucidity, Minor is found to be highly remorseful, sending his army pension to the newly widowed Eliza Merrett with whom he later develops a relationship. He also gains favour with the guards after using his medical training to save one of their lives. Consequently, Minor is left to the solace of his painting and his books, which seem to keep the madness at bay.

The intersection of Murray and Minor’s lives makes for one fascinating story as their heartfelt friendship develops. Gibson and Penn are magnificent in their roles, with Penn in particular immersing himself in the tormented Minor. While the basis of this story is one of truth, it has been augmented with Hollywood fiction. This doesn’t detract from being an entertaining and enlightening film about one of the most important contributions to the English language.

The Professor and the Madman
In cinemas Thursday, 20 February 2020
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